IT is not
difficult for the glib political hirelings of capitalism to distort
the socialist ideal before unthinking listeners. A military state—organized
force—designed to protect private property, is certainly an abhorrence
of the socialist. The socialist wants a state that shall serve—that
shall serve all the people. The socialist state does not contemplat[e]
a “ruler.” The socialist state is to be simply the consummation
of that ideal of liberty, equality and fraternity which the American
forefathers conceived, but did not know how to lay the fiscal basis
for. It is astonishing how subtly the chief public servant of the
United States has come to be called a “ruler.” The word is never
seen in our mid-century literature. Republicans—with stupid absence
of any republican conceptions—call the late President McKinley “one
of the best rulers we ever had,” and for the last six or eight years
the word has been commonly used to designate our chief executive.
It indicates the death of the old republican conceptions and the
gradual enslavement of the people to old reactionary ideas of government.
The co-operative commonwealth, the
goal of the socialist ideal, is a state that shall administer the
affairs of all the people. No one will rule. All will serve. The
only repressive function of the state will be to forbid repression,
to insure absolute equality of opportunity to every child born into
it. All that the anarchist hates in government would disappear under
such a state, for no one could oppress where all men were free,
and where the government’s sole care would be to preserve the freedom
and opportunity of all.